Kidney stones!!!!

Well, another year, another kidney stone for my dear husband. We thought we might have actually had this problem licked. The whole story really begins about 5 years ago, when hubby had been complaining about his back and side hurting...well, I arrived home one day and he comes running out of the house holding his side saying , " I need to go to the emergency room right now" Well, needless to say, this scared the crap out of me, because, cullen never wants to go to the doctor, and because I had never seen him in so much pain. Well, I took him to the clinic here in town, he say a really wonderful nurse pract. who made him tinkle in a cup and checked it and said that there was a lot of blood in it and well she wanted him to go to the emergency room right away. This did not appeal to cullen, and so he called a friend of his, who worked for a urologist (who he also had done some work for) and got a speedy apointment that afternoon. Well, after an check up, doc said he thought all was well, the stone would probally pass, and to watch for it, drink extra water, pee as much as possible, limit salt and to drink powdered lemonaid and to lay off of the soda, no tea at all and limit any liquids that you cant see through...well this all seemed doable and we left with a perscribtion for some pain killers... The next few days were uncomfortable for cullen, but with the pain killers, all went well, and he passed the stone a few day later...a bit of tenderness after that and all was well again...

and so the story goes...this happened again, and then again, and then on the 4th time, we had xrays done to see if we could spot any more stones...and there were more. Doctor decided to do some further testing and said that he wanted to rule out bladder cancer and they did a "little looksy in the bladder". Yes, it is as bad as it sounds...they actually ran a "scope" up the penis and into the bladder and made sure there was no cancer. Well, thank God, there was none! and so we were back to just a kidney stone issue. Well, more testing was planned and so on. The did another xray, and they did a peetest (for lack of a better word) They actually collect all the urine for a full 24 hour period and then see exactally what is in it... Well, after this wonderful test and xrays, it was determined that cullen produces to much uric acid and would have to be on meds to take care of this problem. Well, we were actually releaved to "know what the problem was" and were happy to think that we were actually going to "get to move on" and maybe stop with the torture of the kidney stones. Cullen has been on the meds for 1 year now and this a.m. about 4, he was up and down, up and down and so I asked if he was ok. No, he said, "my side is hurting" I asked, is it a stone or what??? Cullen said" i dont think so, I slipped on the stairs yesterday, with the buffer and I think I may have pulled a muscle. (now i know it is a stone, because this is almost exactly what he says every time. the first time, it was, I lifted some furniture and pulled my back, then it was I twisted my back when I did that, and I lifted the freezer,blah, blah, blah...see the pattern yet???) anyhow back to the story. Morning is here, and I ask if I should call the doc and he says, no, I am ok. We did some small chores and cullen had to sit down. I found him in the bathroom after that and well, he delived yet another Kidney stone!!!!!!! We were not to excited about the whole thing, thinking that the meds would be taking care of this. Well, cullen reminded me of the last xrays that we say, when he did the peetest, and he has several more stones that were in his kidneys then and so he believe he just passed them and that he will be fine.

We will have to just wait and see how things work out. Are these meds working? Is he still forming new kidney stones????????/ The good news is that he passed this one pretty easy and is only a bit sore and is moving on quickly. And hopefully this will be the last of the pesky kidney stones!!!!!!